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Mommy, Don't Worry, You're Not Fat

by Word of Mom Blogger on November 28, 2012

Word of Mom Blogger

About the Author

The best parenting bloggers share their thoughts on the wild and crazy journey of raising kids.

About the Blog

WhatToExpect.com supports Word of Mom as a place to share stories and highlight the many perspectives and experiences of pregnancy and parenting. However, the opinions expressed in this section are those of individual writers and do not reflect the views of Heidi Murkoff of the What to Expect brand.

Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile are co-authors of three best-selling books: "I Was A Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids," "Dirty Little Secrets From Otherwise Perfect Moms," and "I'd Trade My Husband for a Housekeeper." They are now Executive Producers of a non-scripted television show and have several mulit-media projects in the works. They have five kids between them and have been friends for 20+ years.

Trisha Ashworth has produced advertising for American Express, PepsiCo, and Levi Strauss & Co. She lives in Chicago with her husband and three children.

Amy Nobile has led public relations programs for Visa, Frito-Lay, and Mattel. She lives in New England with her husband and two children.

We've interviewed hundreds of moms and we hear it over and over: Moms beat themselves up, in many different ways. And believe us when we say that our kids are listening — even when we don't think they are.

One mom, Lisa, recently told us that her five-year-old daughter walked up to her and said, "Mommy, you know that you're really NOT fat, right?"

Once Lisa screwed her head back on her body, she calmly asked her daughter, Abby, what she meant. "Well, I heard you telling Daddy that you've been so busy with work that you haven't worked out and that you feel really fat. And then I heard you call YOURSELF fat in the shower. Why would you do that, Mommy?"

Lisa looked at her in shock and disbelief. "How did you hear me in the shower?" "Well, I know that you like to talk to yourself a lot in the shower so I always hide right next to it and listen to what you say," her daughter said matter-of-factly.

Wow. Lisa was horrified on two levels. First, that her FIVE-year-old daughter was consoling HER about feeling fat (FAT! A FIVE-year-old!); and second, that she was secretly spying on her in the shower and had heard god-knows-what in there.

As her mind quickly filed through all of the out loud conversations she's had with herself in the shower, she silently began reeling in horror ("should she friend her old boyfriends on Facebook?" "her mother-in-law really IS certifiable!") and then felt really defeated. She responded with what she called a "really lame" answer: "Oh, I was just...don't worry...it's really nothing...I didn't mean that..." and has felt awful ever since.

We all cringe hearing this story, but it really hits home in terms of how much our kids listen to what we say, and how strong of an influence we have on them. We recently ran across this quote and it has stuck with us ever since: "The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice."

We have to be SO careful about how our body image issues transfer and translate to our kids. Another friend of ours, Sheila, regularly pinches her stomach (while her kids are around) and complains about her belly pooch. We get it. It's normal, and it's how we feel, but we just don't want or need our kids to pick up on the message that they've got to monitor how their bodies look at such a young age.